2009 La Caudrina Moscato d'Asti

Notes

Romano Dogliotti is the owner of La Caudrina, and he was one of the first small growers to bottle his own wine, many years ago. Now he and his sons produce one of the very best examples of Moscato d'Asti, and they also make the only artisanal Asti Spumante. The creation of such a simple pleasure is in fact pretty technical winemaking. La Caudrina Moscato d'Asti is made by putting the juice of their normally ripe Moscato grapes in a special reinforced fermentation vessel, called an 'autoclave,' with yeast; the must ferments at low temperature until about half the natural sugar in it is consumed, then the wine is quickly filtered tostop the fermentation. This means that Moscato has only 5.5% alcohol by volume, and enough residual sweetness to remind you of a very ripe peach (but not nearly as much as you find in other classic dessert wines such as Sauternes). All of the carbon dioxide from the fermentation is absorbed into the wine, making it naturally bubbly ('frizzante,' or half-sparkling). This bubbly sweetness makes it the perfect accompaniment to a number of fruit desserts, as well as the classic Torta di Nocciole (hazelnut cake, a very typical dessert in Piedmont). It is also an excellent cold glass of wine on a hot afternoon.